


In for a little cuddle

by tall_wolf_of_tarth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Injury, Cute Animals, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Meadows at Tarth, Sheep, TikTok, based on that tiktok where a cute guy cuddles a sheep, because it’s already gone, its cute but Jaime’s hand has been chopped off prior to this fic, like in canon so don’t complain about it to me, look I couldn't be bothered to figure it out so I made it work like I want it to work, meadows at tarth are full of sheep, no one is getting their hand cut off, some Westerosi version of TikTok, this fic is crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29020695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tall_wolf_of_tarth/pseuds/tall_wolf_of_tarth
Summary: Brienne is a sheep farmer with a video blog. Jaime is a subscriber.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 325
Kudos: 372





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CawCam = Tiktok, but bastardised.

After he gets released from the hospital, Jaime spends his days idly scrolling at his phone. He quickly abandons FaceScroll and Raven, tries shortly RookTube but ends up to CawCam where there are no pretentious assholes ranting about politics or influencers hawking video games or makeup.

People using CawCam seem to be a generation younger than Jaime, still unmarred by mortgages and car leases and life-altering injuries. They dance, do silly challenges and seem generally to have fun. The videos are short, just one minute or under and the algorithms behind the videos seem to guess pretty well what Jaime wants to see in the short hours when he is awake before the pain meds kick in. He falls asleep Myrcella lip-syncing into a hairbrush handle or Margaery Tyrell and her red-headed fiance making whipped coffee and for a short moment, Jaime forgets his own misery and pain.

When he gets off from prescription pain meds the app becomes even bigger help for Jaime. The phantom pain in his amputated hand makes it hard to fall asleep and Jaime watches an endless stream of videos to calm himself but eventually, the upbeat music and thomping dances start to irritate him more and more. He swipes away almost all videos.

The only one that doesn’t irritate him is a gardening video where a girl with a soothing Stormlands accent explains how to train fruit trees. The video is from a sunny backyard and the midway through the video the girl gets interrupted by a big yellow dog nosing her pocket. “‘Ello, Dunk, who's a good boy, you are,” the girl coos, pets the dog and gives him a treat from her pocket before continuing to explain where the branches should be cut. “Bye, friends,” she ends the video with a shy wave.

Jaime replays that video probably dozens of times before falling asleep. When he wakes up and charges his phone up again he doesn’t find the video, but each night he goes to bed he closes his eyes and thinks about that apple orchard, the green hills dotted with sheep and the girl with knee-high socks in her rubber boots talking to a big dog.

* * *

Brienne is hardly lonely. She has her animals to take care of, and there is a lot to work with her flocks of sheep, not to mention other animals living with her at her farm. When done with farm work she has her translation work she tries to do at least a few hours daily and almost every day she has little time to catch up with her human friends. Mostly that means scrolling through their group chat -- or at least the latest messages -- and checking their CawCam videos.

CawCam especially is easiest to follow and her friends post something new every day. Sometimes Brienne posts her own videos, although never dancing no matter how much Margaery or Ygritte begs her to join in the fun. Brienne has done her share of dancing and lip-syncing videos when she was in college and living with Margaery but she feels silly doing them alone.

Now she usually films something at the farm, encouraged by the videos Margaery and Sansa post that often feature their bed and breakfast they are trying to set up in Crownlands.

Sometimes Brienne makes videos based on the requests from her friends, like when Pod couldn’t figure out how to change a bicycle tyre or when Sansa wanted to know how to prune the trees. Mostly Brienne takes videos of her sheep and Dunc, her big and sappy sheepdog. Brienne even changed her CawCam handle to @tarthfarmgirl, half bullied to do so by Gal who runs Tarth tourism social media accounts.

This morning, it’s Sansa who posts a sheep video. It’s mainly Margaery running after the three ewes and one ram Brienne gave Stark-Tyrells as a wedding gift a few months before. Margaery is trying to move their little herd from one pasture to another, rather unsuccessfully as it seems evident by her shrieking and the escaping sheep. Brienne hears Sansa laughing and the video ends with Margaery collapsing to the grass, giggling. “Help us, Brienne,” Margaery laughs. “How do you move sheep?”

At the end of the day, Brienne has made a CawCam and posts it.

Unfortunately, it goes viral.

* * *

Jaime sits down to the bench in front of the ugly concrete building that hosts his physiotherapists' office. He is exhausted and doesn’t want to go to the stifling hot metro station. Instead, he sips his iced coffee drink and opens CawCam on his phone, watches Tommen play with Ser Pounce, skips the next three videos and then stops when a pair of blue eyes come to screen.

The woman on the screen steps back from the camera, and Jaime’s eyes go to her naked thighs under the ratty coat covering the tops of her rugby shorts. “So you want to see a tutorial on how to pick up a sheep,” she says and Jaime immediately recognises her voice. It’s the girl who talked about training apple trees.

The video is short; she stands in a meadow crowded by sheep with black faces “--I’ve got my little volunteers here, they’re all eager”--, she motions with her arms and then ”--I’ll demonstrate for you. Two hands there, pick up, easy as that.” She picks up an animal like it weighs nothing. The smile lights up her face and Jaime smiles with her. Even the sheep in her arms looks happy and content.

The girl presses her face to the fuzzy coat of the animal to hide her grin. “And then he’s just in for a little cuddle, okay? And they absolutely love it.” Something lurches inside Jaime’s belly. When was it the last time when someone hugged him, he tries to think but doesn’t remember.

Jaime immediately saves the video and watches it again. Then he goes to her profile, finds the video from the orchard, saves that too and goes back to read the comments on the first video. There’s only a couple, by Margaery Tyrell and her friends.

“Thanks B!!!”

“Say hi to Dunk from me!”

“gods I wish that were me” Jaime types to the comment box and presses send, mainly because he suspects it would greatly irritate Margaery. That night in his bed he thinks what more can the girl pick up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne reads some comments. Jaime realises something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thirst comments that Gal reads are shamelessly stolen from that Tumblr post where farmer dude in rugby shorts lifs a sheep up.
> 
> I’ve decided that Tarth Blacknose sheep look like Valais Blacknose and it’s purely because Valais Blacknose sheep are Too Damn Cute. I’ve made them a little bit smaller than they are really. Valais Blacknose sheep [look like this.](https://valaisblacknosesheepcheshire.co.uk/about-the-valais-blacknose-sheep-breed/)
> 
> Also, be aware that TikTok doesn’t Work Like That, I’ve made up CawCam for one reason: so I don’t have to actually find out how TikTok works. I am a crotchety old biddy (shakes fists to the clouds).
> 
> And thank you so much my two lovely betas, EmpressM who fixes my prepositions and Webory who makes my jokes better and supplies me with endless photos of Extremely Cute Animals.

**Chapter 2**

It doesn’t go viral immediately. It definitely takes a few days to simmer before it boils over.

Brienne gets the usual replies from her friends and one odd one from a guy called @JamLan86 -- which she promptly ignores -- and then she goes on living her life completely unaware how CawCam algorithms push her video to bigger and bigger audiences. On Saturday morning she drives up to Castle Hill to fix a broken gate, checks the flock grazing in a nearby field and it’s not until her drive home that she finds her phone has died in her pocket.

Brienne plugs her phone in the charger in the kitchen, goes to check the animals in the farm and forgets her phone until she comes back in, planning to wash up and make her tea.

She never gets to the tea because of the constant ringing of her phone.

It’s Margaery, which by itself is odd because Margaery rarely calls -- she usually bombards Brienne with a constant stream of text messages. When Brienne picks up the phone from the charger, she notices an odd message on the phone screen about 24k new notifications in CawCam, which she ignores when accepting the call.

“Daenerys Targaryen made a reaction video about your latest Caw!” Margaery immediately shouts over Brienne’s _hello_. “You’ve gone viral!”

Brienne groans.

* * *

“This is great,” says Galladon and hands Brienne a bottle of beer from the six pack he brought with him. Gally studied marketing in Uni and is specialised in social media marketing, although he is rather clueless about anything that Brienne and her friends are doing online, being ten years older than Brienne. But the situation is very dire and Brienne needs all the help she can get.

“Great? Have you seen the comments?” Brienne is almost ready to weep. Her stupid Caw she meant only as a joke for Margaery and Sansa has been shared, liked and commented tens of thousands times during the day. Before Brienne turned off the alerts her phone beeped endlessly with new notifications.

Gal reads the comments out loud while Brienne tries to drown her sorrows into Morne’s Best Stout.

_This is so Stormy that I’m crying tea_

_Why is her outfit hot tho_

Brienne groans. Of course she had to wear that old coat in the damn video that went viral.

_I have pygmy goats, they love being picked up and cuddled_

_Can she be my wife_

_Gods I wanna be picked up like a sheep_

“So many people are saying that,” laughs Gal and points the phone to Brienne. “This dude is wearing a sheep onesie, look?”

Brienne doesn’t look. In fact, she covers her eyes and tries _not_ to look. Gal laughs more, and apparently takes a screenshot before continuing reading the comments.

_I love her_

_Can the tall girl cuddle ME_

_agricultural hotpants_

“Those are just rugby shorts!” Brienne wails.

_I’m eager and down for a little cuddle, Stormlander_

_Oh to be a sheep picked up by a tall farm girl in slutty shorts_

“Oh gods, I hate this all,” Brienne whines. Gal is laughing so much that there are tears in his eyes. “There are like four thousand subscribers now. What am I going to do with this all?”

Gal wipes his face to his sleeve and then a sharp look comes to his face. “This is great, Bree. We’re going to get so much publicity for the island.”

“No!” Brienne looks at her brother. Of course, the first thing that Gal thinks is the publicity for Tarth tourism. “I’m not going to milk this so you can brag about it to your friends from Uni.”

“You can milk it just a little, Bree. There are like twenty different people asking what breed of sheep you have. Do one video where you explain about Tarth Blacknoses.”

“No, Gal.”

“Yes, Gal. You always complain that people don’t know enough about heritage sheep breeds. Now’s your chance to educate them.”

* * *

They make the video the next day, and Brienne explains about her herd and Blacknoses and by Gal’s insistence, she picks up a particularly cute ewe for a cuddle.

The video gets more than 4000 shares and the Tarth Blacknose Sheep Protection Society gets so many calls and emails that Gal needs to help their dad to respond to all of the inquiries.

 _Good_ , thinks Brienne with sisterly malice when she hears about it and goes to the backyard to feed her chickens.

* * *

The worst thing about going viral is definitely the asks that flood Brienne’s CawCam inbox. Eventually she hands her credentials to Gal to filter out the rude and irrelevant ones.

She scrolls through the rest a few days later. There are a surprising amount of suggestions about what more should Brienne pick up.

@JamLan86

_What else can you pick up Farm Girl?_

Suggestions vary from horses, bears and goats to zorses. Brienne ignores them all. She spots one ask from someone who seems to have a sheep farm of their own.

@BearIslandFarming

_Your sheep are so tiny! Try to pick up one of ours, I bet you can’t._

Tarth Blacknoses are small, it’s true. They weigh mostly 50-60 kg, grown mainly for their wool and not for meat. Brienne is not sure what breed of sheep Bear Islanders grow, but the merino sheep that dot almost every hill at Tarth are much bigger than Brienne’s little Blacknoses. She doesn’t have any merino sheep herself, but her neighbour keeps a lot of them.

Brienne picks up her phone and gives a call to her neighbour Mr Goodwin.

* * *

“Too fucking cute lol” reads Jaime from Addam’s FaceScroll feed and suddenly he is confused because he sees the same Caw that the tall farm girl posted few days ago. Addam, who surely knows nothing about CawCam is for some reason sharing her video in FaceScroll. The video has thousands of likes and shares in FaceScroll.

When Jaime goes to CawCam to check what’s going on, he sees that her Caw -- and the girl herself he supposes -- has gone viral. In the next few days he spots her on Raven, FaceScroll and Jaime thinks she is probably even on PornRook although he doesn’t go there to check.

The girl herself seems to take the news in the way zoomers deal with everything that the world throws at them - like a fish takes to water.

A few days later, she posts a video where she talks about the cute sheep breed she keeps. This time she is dressed in denim shorts and pink t-shirt, but the rubber boots with knee-high socks are the same as before. Jaime listens to her listing facts about the breed, but his eyes are glued to her bare arms. The girl is ripped, her arms and her shoulders are muscled, and Jaime swallows when the Caw ends. It’s embarrassing how turned on he is about this unknown woman from a remote island.

The next Caw the girl from Tarth makes is a response to some other sheep farmer egging her on. “We do have bigger sheep here on Tarth,” TarthFarmGirl explains while standing in a pasture, surrounded by sheep that look little less cute than her Tarth sheep, but still very adorable. The farm girl is wearing a Tarth Pirates t-shirt and her arms are bare again.

“You might have seen it on the label on your nice sweater - genuine Tarth Merino -- and these ladies here are some excellent examples of merino sheep. They are maybe 90 kilos each.” The sheep look around with stupid expression on their little faces, unbothered by her talking.

“But can I lift one?” The girl asks, with a shy smile -- and Jaime doesn’t understand why he likes her smile so much, but he does -- and then she lifts up one animal, the muscles on her arms stretching and bulging. “Yes, I can.” She puts the sheep down and gives it something to nibble from her pocket.

 _Shit_ , thinks Jaime. He really needs something else to do besides dicking around on his phone and perving on innocent farm girls he doesn’t know.

* * *

The girl posts another Caw the same day. When Jaime sees the alert on his phone, he immediately stops his jog, goes sit down on a bench in the park and watches it.

It's a short duet (Jaime learned the word from Myrcella) where she acts as two characters. One is clearly herself, wearing a pink t-shirt with shorts and her straw-coloured hair is hanging at her shoulders. The other character she plays is wearing a flat cap, a vest with too many pockets and an unlit pipe in his mouth. He holds an old rotary phone receiver on his ear.

“Mr Neighbour,” the Farm Girl character talks to an ancient Skagos phone. “I’m going up to Castle Hill today, do you want me to check your flock?”

“Oh,” Mr Neighbour says with the fake bass voice, “that’s nice of you, Farm Girl. Thank you.”

Farm Girl twirls her hair around her finger, and Jaime notices that she has freckles on her fingers. “Mr Neighbour, do you mind if I pick up one of your sheep while I’m there?”

The feed switches between two characters, while both are staring at each other until Farm Girl breaks the silence. “I’m making a Caw, Mr Neighbour.”

Mr Neighbour opens and closes his mouth like a fish on dry land. “You need a sheep to make a cow?”

Jaime laughs and then bites his lip before watching the video again. He likes her dry humour and ability to make fun of herself.

It’s clear he has at least a smallish crush on this woman he doesn’t even know and who lives on a remote island, far away from King’s Landing.

I need to get a hobby, Jaime thinks while finishing his jog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for every kudos and comment, I read and cherish them all!! I love everyone in this bar!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Hyle!! and Brienne shows the world her ass. Jaime does something else besides perving on farm girls on CawCam.
> 
> Updated rating to Teen because of profanities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the lovely comments you have left on this fic!!! I've read each and every comment and cherish them all. I promise I will get to replying to them eventually *cries*  
> And the best of thanks to my two lovely betas!!!! Without you this would have never happened and all the prepositions would be wrong.

Chapter 3

Brienne tries not to dwell too much on her new-found CawCam fame. It hardly affects her real life, besides some calls she gets from reporters (which she ignores) and some remarks from younger locals which she brushes off easily.

Brienne spends her Sunday morning sifting through the asks she gets through the app and tries to find one to respond to. Usually she tries to find one that piques her interest and would have a subject that is at least mildly educational. She checks the submitter’s profile to make sure that there’s nothing untowards there and saves the ask to her drafts if she thinks she might answer it later.

The one she ends up picking up today is from @kittenking, a young child -- based on the stop-motion animations starring Legos, cat plushies and toy knights that fill their feed.

@kittenking

_Hello TarthFarmGirl! Do you have only girl sheep or are any of them boys?_

Brienne finishes her breakfast, steps into her wellies and goes outside to film.

“Hello KittenKing!” Brienne waves to the phone she has set up on the stone wall encasing the meadow. “I have both ewes - who are girl sheep -- and rams who are boy sheep.”

She goes to find a ram grazing nearby and brings him closer to the camera. “This handsome fellow here is a ram, his name is Hyle.”

Brienne scratches behind Hyle’s ears and the ram baas happily. His shaggy white coat is full of grass stains and leaves, which Brienne idly picks off him while she talks.

“Hyle here has one job, and that is to get my ewes pregnant. And he does it very well. His reproductive system is in excellent condition and he is a very lively little fellow.”

Brienne then tells about her other rams, Mark, Ben and Ambrose. Brienne makes sure not to turn her back to Hyle, because she knows from the experience that he cannot be trusted, so she lifts the animal up and goes to the phone to stop the camera.

The video gets a decent amount of shares and likes, but not nearly like the one she posts a few weeks later.

This one is from some guy who seems to post mainly about his car and it's the type that Brienne suspects she gets many but doesn’t see often because Gally, as promised, deletes all the gross ones from her profile daily. Brienne knows that Gal was out drinking with his friends, and mustn’t have woken up yet this morning.

@griffinroostdude

_Show us your ass farm chick_

Sometimes spite is the best inspiration and instead of deleting the ask, she saves it as a draft and goes to film a response.

* * *

“‘Ello,” the girl waves at the camera. She is wearing denim shorts with knee-high socks and rubber boots again but it’s her soft-looking sweater that catches Jaime’s eye. The deep blue colour sets up the girl’s blue eyes.

“I got this comment that you want to see my ass,” the girl rolls her pretty eyes, “well, here he is.” She moves away from the camera to reveal a small donkey. The girl gives carrots from a bucket to the donkey and scratches him. “This here is Red, he is a donkey. He was being kind of an ass, and was sent here as a punishment for eating Mrs Tyrell’s roses. ” The girl scratches the donkey, who chews the carrot with great enthusiasm. “I know you all like to see me pick things up, so do you think I can lift him?” She smiles, puts her hands around the animal and lifts him up. “I sure can.” She puts the donkey down and gives him another carrot and scratches his ears. “Good boy.”

* * *

Jaime’s therapist (his head therapist, not his Physical Therapist) recommends that he make a list of activities he misses doing and picking two things on the list to try. Mostly Jaime misses the fun he used to have with niblings on Sunday afternoons, and somewhere not far behind on the list is going hiking, so Jaime takes his niece and nephew out of the city on a small hike in the nearby woodlands in Rosby.

The hike itself is more like a walk in a park, with its wide trails and many resting spots, but it feels good to get out of the city. Tommen runs amok through the bushes, trying to catch a glimpse of shadowcats he imagines lurking from every tree, but Myrcy, who pretends to be very grown up, walks next to Jaime talking constantly about her friends and about that Dornish boy band she’s a fan of.

The day is beautiful, and it feels good to be outside in the sun. The wind shuffling through Jaime’s hair would feel like a woman’s fingers, if it wouldn’t constantly push the strands to his eyes and mouth.

When they find a good spot to sit down to have their picnic, Jaime finally gives in and asks Myrcy for a spare hair tie.

“Do you want me to put up your hair, Uncle Jaime?” the girl offers without any pretense. The first time Myrcy and Tommen had come over to visit Jaime, he had asked Myrcy to fix his shoelaces so he could pull them on without having to tie them with his one hand. He had used the excuse of asking her because of the fancy way she had done her own laces, but the truth had been it was easier to ask a child to help him with all those little things he couldn’t do himself any longer.

Myrcy had not only fixed the laces to all his shoes and sneakers but also opened the package of Jaime’s new left-handed scissors, tied his hair up and clipped his fingernails.

Jaime couldn’t ever ask any of these things from anyone else from his family, but Myrcy had just shrugged. “It’s no different than helping Tommen with his nails,” she had said. “Except you don’t wiggle as much as he does.”

Those short times when Jaime’s sister’s children were visiting him were the only times when Jaime felt some normalcy after his accident. The kids just accepted his new state of helplessness without any fanfare, unlike the adults, who were understandably upset, but whose constant need to talk about how upsetting it was to them was exhausting to Jaime, who had his own trauma to deal with.

Myrcy produces the hair tie from somewhere, and is already moving up to do Jaime’s hair, but Jaime shakes his head this time.

“It’s alright, sweetling, I can do it myself now.” Jaime takes the hair tie from her, moves it around his fingers and gathers his hair up to his hand and manages to fumble it to a half-decent manbun.

“That’s so cool, Uncle Jaime,” Myrcy gushes. “Where did you learn this?”

Jaime’s PT, who is a grumpy man who doesn’t talk much, had given Jaime a pile of printouts with smudged drawings, full of instructions of doing things one-handedly. Jaime had almost binned the whole lot, but when faced with the options of either to go outside to an actual hairdresser and smalltalk through a haircut or alternatively to learn to tie his overgrown curls himself from ancient hieroglyphs the latter seemed an easier option.

Myrcy makes him show his new skill again. “Can I take a video?” she asks then.

“So you can post it to CawCam?” Jaime smiles.

“No,” Myrcella shakes her head vehemently. “So _you_ can post it to yours. So others can learn too. Besides, your CawCam timeline is so boring, you only share Tommen’s cat videos or post about those stupid espresso machines. No wonder no one leaves you comments.”

Before they can film anything, Myrcy gets a text from her friend which turns into an emergency with severeness that only teenage girls can understand. Apparently, someone called Trystane Martell has made a new Caw where he eats jelly donuts for the first time and Myrcy really needs to make a reaction video about her watching it _like right now_.

“It’s really important, Uncle Jaime,” Myrcy, who suddenly has transformed to a teenage girl she really should be always, cries. “It’s important to do _like right now_ , everyone knows he comments on the reaction videos right after he posts a new Caw!!”

Jaime, who remembers well enough what kind of meltdowns Cersei had about Rhaegar Targaryan in her teens, lets her film it right there at the trail. He usually tries to keep his niblings away from their phones while he spends time with them, which might be slightly hypocritical considering how much of his teenage years he spent on playing Snake on his Skagos 5110 phone -- and how much he spends lurking on Farming CawCam now.

Jaime leaves Myrcella to her squealing and mugging at her phone and goes to search for shadowcats with Tommen from the bushes. In the end of the day, Myrcy has gotten a heart emoji from Trystane Martell and Tommen has found a family of six hedgehogs to run after. And Jaime might have some new ideas as well.

* * *

One of the oddest things about CawCam is the reaction videos that people make, and Brienne really can’t figure out what to think about them. When Daenerys Targaryen made a reaction video about her Caw it had been extremely odd to watch, and not to mention dozens and dozens of reaction videos Dany’s fans made of Dany’s reaction video, all tagged to Brienne’s account too, so Brienne just mainly ignored all that fuss and pretended it never happened, at least not to her.

But then this one hot guy makes a reaction video to that Caw where Brienne introduces her donkey, Red.

“Heyyyyy,” the guy responds to Brienne’s onscreen hello with a shark-like smile on his extremely handsome face. His eyes roam the screen. “Rude!” he remarks when Brienne tells about the comment asking to see her ass but when Brienne moves aside to show the donkey, the guy -- @JamLan86 -- makes a cooing sound. “Awww fu--dge! A donkey!” His voice goes all soft and he looks very sweet. Brienne feels her cheeks going warm.

@JamLan86 watches the rest of the video with a too cute smile stretching his face, until onscreen Brienne lifts the donkey up. Then he gets this odd look at his face and Brienne prepares herself for whatever horrible thing the beautiful man will say about her, but he only sighs a little and says with a soft voice: “Of course you can, Farm Girl.” He finishes his Caw with a cheeky “Well that was a very fine ass” and a wink to a camera.

It’s weird. The reaction video is definitely weird.

When Brienne goes to stalk @jamlan86 profile, she finds out that the man is recently disabled -- missing his right hand, and his recent Caws are short instructionals where he shows how to do things like tie shoelaces or do up your hair with one hand, and that he shares a lot of cat videos. In the older Caws he still has two hands, and those are mostly reviews about horribly expensive espresso machines. He has also done a decent amount of Caws where he talks about rock climbing and different climbing spots in Crownlands and Westerlands.

Brienne has done her share of climbing and she listens with interest at the pretty guy talking about the trails Brienne has wanted to visit but never had the finances to do so. It’s in one of those videos where she learns the man’s name --Jaime. It’s written on a piece of tape slapped on his too-tight shirt, clearly taken at some informal climbing event. The name with the combination of his username rings some bells in the back of Brienne’s mind but she really can’t figure out how.

She has noticed him commenting on her videos before, of course, as he is always among the first ones to do so. His comments have always been a little bit cheeky but overall respectful. She goes back to read them and finds some comments even before Brienne has gone viral.

_I watched you talking about your tomatoes and fell asleep 12/10 will watch again tonight_

_Your dog is such a good boi_

_how gorgeous is that island_

Brienne goes back to the reaction video, shares it to her own feed and adds a comment: “It’s nice to know that someone appreciates your fine ass 🐴”

She gets a reply only a few minutes later.

@jamlan86

😳🤩

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, those two idiots have interacted!!!
> 
> So, apparently the punishment for being an ass is to be sent to Tarth. [Here's Red Ron serving out his term for eating Mrs Tyrell's roses.](https://tall-wolf-of-tarth.tumblr.com/post/642813969145479168)
> 
> In the next chapter, they will interact more!!! It's already written, but I'm going to wait for the smut exchange finish before I'll post it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaction to Jaime’s reaction video. Brienne and Gal have a nice chat. Jaime does something stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I capped the chapter count!! We are getting closer to the end. Thank you all who has sent me suggestions what Brienne should pick up and also for all the cute animal vids I've received. I tried to put in as much as I could but the fic would be at least twice as long and I'm dying to get our two dear idiots to actually meet. Thank you also my two betas, Webory who helps me with the jokes and nods to canon and EmpressM who fixes my grammar. And lets not forget dear people at JBTwerk whom I pilfer jokes from. 
> 
> This chapter has Gal in it, and you might enjoy knowing that my fancast for Galladon Tarth is Tom Hopper (Dickon Tarly from the show). So very tall, fair and fit.

**Chapter 4**

Jaime’s reaction video for Farm Girl's Caw gets a decent amount of shares, but the only one he cares about is the one he gets from Farm Girl herself. Jaime rides on the high he gets from it for a whole morning, and in fresh euphoria, he takes a call from his old friend Addam and accidentally agrees to work as a consultant for his company. At least Jaime has enough brain power to agree only to work half-time and not on location, he contemplates, while disconnecting the call and opening the Caw again to look at her comment on her share.

Jaime really wants to send her a PM as a thank you, but he feels it might be too pushy.

Instead, he goes to check who else has shared his reaction. One of them seems to be some kind of official Raven account for the Tarth tourism board.

Whoever manages the account has added a picture and comment to the share -- a knight kneeling in front of a Lady Knight, offering her a sword. It seems to be from some medieval manuscript and Jaime recognises the scene as the Kingslayer giving the legendary Oathkeeper to the Maid of Tarth.

@tarthtourismofficial

 _The mainlanders crushing on Tarth girls is not a new thing_ 😂😍⚔️

_Come to check #theOathkeeper at Tarth Museum @tarthmuseum_

Jaime follows the Tarth tourism board and goes to poke around in the feed. It seems to be managed by a tall guy with a short mop of straw-coloured hair and sharp jaw. Galladon Tarth, Jaime learns from one Caw where the man is wearing a name badge, explaining with great enthusiasm about the petroglyphs of sheep carved on a boulder at Morne.

Jaime hits the jackpot when he spots Farm Girl in one of the Caws the tourism account has shared. She and Galladon Tarth are mock-fighting with tourney swords at some castle courtyard. Jaime watches the fight with greedy eyes, and when at the end, the marketing guy hugs Farm Girl, Jaime feels seedlings of hate inside him growing and reaching towards the tall dude like daisies reach for the sun.

He is not jealous, Jaime grumbles to himself, he just really doesn’t like tall blond guys who are overly familiar with innocent farm girls.

* * *

Brienne uploads the video to 7drive, drops the link in Galladon’s messages and picks up her phone to call him.

“It’s good,” Gally tells her after watching the video. “Post it.”

“People will be mean. To Walda and… To me.” Brienne feels very protective about the only animal she hasn’t introduced to the world yet. She has posted about Dunc, her chickens and her sheep, her donkey, that one cat she doesn’t own but who comes by every few days, that one asshole goose that likes to steal everything that is not tied down and even about her hive of bees. All animals except Walda have gotten a shout out to the world.

“Just post it, and don’t look at any of the comments before I check them. I’ll write your tags if you want.”

“You can’t tag shit, Gal, and I’ve already done the draft.” Brienne sighs, frets a little, and publishes the video. They watch it together while Gally is still on the phone with her.

“This lovely lady here is Walda,” on-screen Brienne tells on the video, crouching beside a huge pig who is laying in a pen full of straw. “She’s a rescue as well, like Red. Walda was sold as a micro pig to a family on the mainland, but as you see, she is a regular domestic pig and when she started to grow to her size, she needed a new home, so she came to live here.”

Brienne has filmed some shots from Walda’s pen and from the backyard where the pig grazes and plays with the toys Brienne has put out for her enrichment, and put in a voice-over explaining how the pigs are actually very clean animals when they have decent living space. The video cuts back to Brienne brushing Walda with a stiff brush in her pen.

“Walda here likes flowers,” Brienne explains onscreen. “She either eats them or she brings them to her nest.” The feed shows some wildflowers around her pen. “Walda is a really sweet animal.”

Brienne gives Walda some bread she has made for her to eat. “This little piggy here is an absolute unit, and I love her very much. I’m not going to pick her up as she wouldn't like it.” The video ends with Walda sniffing some flowers in the backyard.

“Should I delete the ones that say you couldn’t do it?” Gal asks.

“No, just leave them in. I’ll do one where I lift her weight in the gym, that should shut them up.”

“I really can’t believe what kind of assholes people can be,” Gal complains. “Some of the things they comment...”

“Not all of them are like that,” Brienne interrupts before Gal can get into the rant again. Brienne has a fairly good idea what kind of assholes people can be, but she tries to concentrate on the good side. “Most of them are sweet.” Brienne wouldn't do this if it was all horrible.

“Oh, like that hot guy who has a crush on you?”

“He doesn’t have a crush on me,” Brienne blurts before she realises her mistake.

“I love it how you instantly knew whom I’m talking about, Bree,” Gal snickers. “The guy looks at you like he wants to climb you. It’s gross perving on you like that, the guy is my age you know.”

“I’m 24, Gal, so it’s not like I’m a teenager. I manage a whole damn farm besides my actual job.”

“You play around on CawCam like a teenager.”

“Which benefits your job, idiot.” Brienne starts fidgeting with the clutter on her kitchen table. When she speaks again, her voice feels oddly wrong. “He hasn’t left any gross comments, has he? JamLan86 I mean?”

“No, he hasn’t,” Gal replies. “The ones I’ve seen have been fairly respectful.”

Then the new comments about the Caw that Brienne has just posted start to flood in.

@aegonthevaegon

_Keeping farm animals is a MURDER you should be ashamed yourself freak_

Brienne groans. “You saw that, Gal?”

“Already taken care of,” he replies and the comment disappears from CawCam. “Now go do something besides looking at the comments while I take care of the assholes,” Gal suggests, not unwisely. “Have you thought about what you’ll do next?”

“Actually, I have an idea you might like.” Brienne shuts her laptop and walks to the window to look outside. “I thought I’d walk up to Pirate’s Cove tomorrow, you know. To check out that walk that the county has marked. I could make a Caw about it.”

Gal is silent on the phone before he moans. “Why didn’t I fucking think of that?”

“Because you’re an old man who doesn’t understand Caw,” Brienne laughs. “Hiking CawCam is a thing, you know.”

“Why haven’t I seen any of that?” Gal continues complaining. “I only get the sea shanties. The damn Walderman is still playing in my head. We should do that, you know. Sing the Walderman.”

“I’m not singing Walderman, Gal. And go read about sea shanty discourse before you do either.”

“There’s a fucking sea shanty discourse?” Gal groans again. “Brienne,” he then says with this sneaky voice Brienne recognises from her childhood, when Gal had to babysit her after the school. The voice he usually used when he wanted Brienne to do something she didn’t want to do, like to stop playing Little Big Planet on Playstation or do her homework. “Speaking of things you don’t want to do, Cortnay Penrose called me again.”

“No Gal,” Brienne groans. They’ve had this discussion several times already.

“Yes Gal. Cortnay and dad are friends, and he would never write anything shitty about you. You can trust him.” Gal has been trying to get Brienne to agree to do an interview for months now. “You know you’ll say yes when I start talking about how much I help you with the comments. And besides, you’ll need someone to feed your beasts while you’re hiking and who else are you going to ask besides your wonderful big brother?!”

“I won't do the interview, Gal,” Brienne insists. She knows she is going to stay strong about this, not like the Playstation or homework. “I won’t!” She’s still bitter about not finishing LBP, damn it. “You can’t make me.”

* * *

The private message comes from anon and contains only a link to an article in the Storms End’s Chronicle.

https://www.sechronicle.com/lifeandstyle/2021/meet-the-videoblogger-with-the-cutest-sheep-on-planetos

The article ends up being a goldmine for Jaime, who is torn between the need to know everything about the Farm Girl (or at least her name) and his reluctance to be a creepy stalker.

So far he has managed to keep his stalking only to CawCam and knows tiny snippets about the Farm Girl. He knows she is tall, that she has very blue eyes and lots of freckles on every inch of skin that Jaime has managed to see, that her name likely starts with B, that she seems to be friends with Margaery Tyrell or at least knows her, that she likes gross sweet coffee drinks like Margaery’s wife makes, and that she lives on Tarth and loves all cute and cuddly animals.

From the interview, Jaime learns so much more. Jaime forces himself to read everything slowly, even though he wants to skip every second line to find out more.

He finds out that her name is Brienne, Brienne Tarth. And that she collaborates often with _her brother_ , Galladon Tarth from Tarth Island Marketing.

Brienne -- the name rolls from his tongue with a lovely ring -- has inherited her farm and her flock of sheep from her uncle Endrew who died suddenly last year, and that Castle Gates Farm has been in the Tarth family since the Andals.

The interviewer seems to be quite partial to Brienne, framing her fame in CawCam more about her work with conserving the heritage sheep breed -- that is in the risk of disappearing with the more profitable merino breeding -- instead of a niche interest of teenage girls dancing in their bedrooms, like the articles about CawCam usually are. Brienne talks about her love for the farm, the animals and Tarth history and Jaime feels overwhelmed about how sweet and funny she comes across.

He then clicks through the gallery encased in the article, feels extremely guilty about saving one particularly adorable picture to his phone, and goes back to reread everything from the beginning. He picks up more tidbits about Brienne, like that her primary job is transcribing and translating 9th century Valyrian manuscripts for Riverland University and that she used to be a tour guide at Evenhall White Castle in her teens.

_“Which CawCam trends you plan to pick up next? Are you going to sing Walderman like everyone else seems to now?”_

_The young woman smiles at my question. “My brother has been egging me to do a sea shanty with him, but it won't be Walderman, as indigenous communities up North consider the song with its colonialist roots to be problematic,” she explains with the enthusiasm of the generation that burns with the need to make everything to be unproblematic. “My dad, who loves sea shanties and folk singing, suggested_ Ser Duncan Tarth _so we might do that. I do have some ideas how to show more Tarth attractions to my followers, so expect to look out for that.”_

Jaime sighs and closes the browser.

Brienne Tarth from Castle Gate Farm, Tarth.

Brienne Tarth, who translates texts from ancient Valyrian and sword fights with her brother, who seems to be a nice young man.

Jaime is filled with an overwhelming need to do something nice to Brienne Tarth, from Castle Gate Farm, Tarth. Like sending her two dozen roses or a nice espresso machine with assorted condiments.

Thank gods that Addam talks him out of it before he pays for the purchase and shipping.

* * *

Brienne almost chickens out, but in the end, she sends a PM to @JamLan86 with a link to the Caw she just posted.

_I noticed you like hiking, so I hope you’ll enjoy this caw I did on a walk we have on the North side of the island._

She presses send and waits for the inevitable freakout she is going to have, but before she has time to crumble down, she gets distracted by Dunk barking at the yard. The intruder that Dunk so bravely defends his household against turns out to be to a delivery van behind her gates.

When she goes to greet the driver, she gets two deliveries, both unexpected.

Or rather, Brienne herself gets only one, an invitation to Renly Baratheon's wedding to Loras Tyrell. Walda the Pig gets a flower delivery.

_I hope Walda appreciates these flowers as much as she must appreciate your care_

Jaime Lannister (@jamlan86)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Surprisingly, Jaime has also been invited to the wedding?!? Who could have thought of that?? 
> 
> Brienne, Gal and Selwyn will end up singing _Ser Duncan Tarth_ , which is based on this [absolute banger called Sir Patrick Spence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd7kBw8gr48), and you’re welcome to your new earworm overlord.
> 
> [So the petroglyphs of sheep are real!! How cute is that??](https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHqU0VJoa3/?igshid=epr0gnv9z9f3)
> 
> And lastly, [the part with Walda is based on this video.](https://autumngracy.tumblr.com/post/641470350987755520)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our two heroes finally meet! And it's going well until it isn't!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me start this chapter by apologising again for being extra baaad with replying to comments!! I read them all and save them to my phone and pet them and talk to them every night!! 
> 
> And again, thank you my dear betas EmpressM and Webory who are patient as septas with me and keep making this fic better. Thank you!!!
> 
> I also upped the chapter count by one, because this chapter grew like a sourdough starter at April 2020. I'm hoping to post the last two chapters before the month ends.

**Chapter 5**

Brienne scrambles to get her phone to make a call. She needs all the help she can get.

“Bree,” Margaery answers with a worried tone. “Is this about Lola and Ren’s wedding invite? I swear Brienne--” Brienne interrupts her friend.

“What? No, Margy.” The problem Brienne has is far more important. “The hot guy from CawCam just sent flowers to my pig.”

For once, Margaery is stunned into silence while Brienne talks through everything.

“His name is Jaime Lannister, it says right here in the delivery note. He’s been commenting on my Caws for ages, and I guess he saw that article… Fuck I shouldn’t have mentioned the farm name, that’s like publishing my address...” Brienne feels her voice going higher with each word.

“Calm down, Brienne. Jaime is relatively harmless. I think.”

“You _know_ him?” Brienne squeals. Then she frowns. “You _think_ he’s harmless?!”

“I’ve met him,” Margaery says airily. “You know how it is with big houses, we all know each other. But I didn’t think he’d be _that_ stupid.”

Suddenly Brienne feels defensive of the guy.

“I know it’s kind of creepy, but it’s also sweet,” she mumbles while fiddling with the blue and pink flowers on her kitchen counter. “I mean, there's a note from the vet and all.”

“Whaaaat?”

“Yeah, there’s a note here, it lists all the flowers in the arrangement and that they are all, well not edible, but not poisonous at least. _Safe to consume by domestic pig._ ”

“That is the weirdest and cutest shit ever,” Margaery snorts audibly and they both start giggling until they are cackling like a pair of witches.

“But Brienne,” Margaery continues when they have calmed down a little, “you are coming, aren’t you? To Lola’s wedding? It would be really lovely to see you. It’s been ages.”

Brienne hasn’t really thought about the stupid wedding, as she never expected to be invited, regardless how close she was with Renly when they were in Uni. But it would be lovely to see Sansa and Margy again.

“It's a location wedding,” Margaery starts quickly explaining like she has speech memorised, “so you only need to travel there. The accommodation is provided for and I know Loras was horrid to you when he started to date Renly but he’s...”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, of course I’ll come, Marg,” Brienne interrupts Margaery again. “But Margy, what am I going to do with the damn flowers?”

“Well, ask Walda to write Jaime a thank you note.” Both girls burst into laughter again.

Suddenly Brienne is not worried at all about being too pushy by sending that PM to Jaime Lannister. Brienne disconnects the call and opens Caw to check if he has responded, and he has.

_J: Thanks for the rec, Farm Girl. That trail looks gorgeous, I have to try it out sometimes._

_J: How’s your sweet Walda?_ 💐

Brienne puts on her wellies to go to the barn, takes a selfie with Walda and flowers and makes sure to get a good video of the pig sniffing the bouquet and sends both to Jaime.

_B: Currently looking at the flowers that her secret admirer has sent her_

_B: she particularly liked marigolds and runner beans, which she ate, but chive blossoms she took to her nest_

_B: Day as usual for her_ 😌

 _J: I’m glad you’re not mad at me Farm Girl_ 🥰

This starts a conversation that doesn’t seem to die down in next weeks, even when Brienne gets busy with preparing for Renly and Loras’s wedding. They seem to talk about nothing and everything.

_J: your chickens are so cute Farm Girl_ 🐥🥚

 _J: What do you do with all the eggs?_ 🍳

 _B: I mix them raw with glass of milk and some honey_ 🥛🍯 🥚🥚🥚

_J: surprised_pikachu.png_

A week later Jaime posts a Caw about his new myoelectric prosthesis that looks super expensive and cool, but drops another video privately to Brienne where the hand is twitching by itself on a table.

_J: I think it’s out to get me_

_J: I’m going to have to sleep with one eye open so I wont get strangled by my own hand_

_B: just lock it in the room with your other excess electronics_

_B: like those 400 espresso machines you apparently own_

_B: besides, you can’t strangle anyone with only one hand, unless you are Darth Vader_

The invite had come only a few weeks before the wedding -- Brienne really doesn’t understand why she was invited at all, never mind so late -- so she goes to town to drop off her blue dress to be altered by a seamstress and buys a wedding gift. She manages to get Gally agree to farm-sit for the weekend, for the price of agreeing to appear on his work Raven feed in three (3) separate occasions, where at least one (1) is a popular CawCam dance (Gal can suggest dances but Brienne keeps veto power on them).

Brienne fiddles with her ferry bookings, trying to decide between the early ferry and the afternoon ferry for her return trip, and in the end decides to the afternoon one, in the hope that she might have time to see her friends on Sunday after the wedding.

When everything else is done, she responds to Jaime’s PM, where he grumbles about his new job.

_B: I’m coming to the mainland on the weekend, can you tell me again the name of that coffee chain you like? I might have time to check it out before my ferry leaves_

_J: Coffee Kingdom? I would have loved to take you but unfortunately I’m busy all weekend_ 😭

_J: DO NOT go to Robert’s Coffee, it’s shit._

* * *

Brienne watches the crowd on the septyard, waiting patiently for Sansa to return when she spots one of Renly’s brothers nearby, talking with a tall blond man who is holding hands of two cute blond children. Brienne catches small snippets of conversation floating to her way.

“...would you like me to introduce you to them, Robert, I know you haven’t seen them for a while? This is Myrcella, your daughter…” a voice full of disdain reaches Brienne.

Brienne, who hates to listen to other people fighting, almost bails from the spot, but then Sansa appears and grabs Brienne’s arm.

“Margy said I need to find you and bring you here,” Sansa drags Brienne to the corner of the septyard.

Brienne has no idea what Marg wants from her, but the experience tells her it’s better just go with it until it’s all over. Soon enough Margaery herself appears, with a man in tow. The man is very tall, with short curly hair and is so attractive that Brienne is not sure that he isn’t some sort of apparition of the Warrior come alive. But somehow despite all this, he looks very familiar.

“Alright,” Margaery looks at Brienne with narrowed eyes when the man turns to look at Brienne, “I think you two already know each other.” Then she looks expectantly back and forth between Brienne -- and Jaime Lannister, the hot guy from CawCam.

“Shit,” Jaime says and stares at Brienne with his green eyes wide. “You’re so much taller than I’ve imagined.”

* * *

“So, how do you know the happy couple?” Jaime asks Brienne when they are slowly walking from the sept to the big estate for the wedding reception. After Margaery and Sansa skated off to take the photographs with the rest of the bridal party, Brienne had looked like she was ready to bolt from Jaime but he had stuck to the girl’s side, regardless of her fidgeting.

Right now, Brienne side-eyes Jaime, biting her lip and messing up her lipstick she clearly is not used to wearing. “I used to play rugby with Renly in University,” she says in her lovely Stormlands accent.

“Oh, I thought you were friends with Margaery,” Unbidden, Jaime reveals his snooping. Luckily she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Sansa was my roommate, so I knew her first.” She glances at Jaime again. Brienne seems to be quite shy compared to her CawCam persona. “And how do you know Ren and Loras?”

“Oh, Renly’s brother used to be married to my sister,” Jaime shrugs.

“So you are friends with Renly?”

“Ah,” Jaime rubs his face with his hand and thinks how much about the mess that is Cersei's and Robert’s custody agreement he should reveal to Brienne. “Officially, I was invited because I used to be Loras’s boss, but technically I’m escorting my niblings here. I think.”

Cersei had spent a good half of one morning last week ranting to Jaime about Robert and his lawyers. The main thing what Jaime had picked up from her half-drunken tirade was that Jaime is to take Myrcella and Tommen to Baratheon-Tyrell wedding because Cersei sure as hell won't, the new nanny is not “broken in yet” and Robert sure as hell can’t be trusted to be alone with the children, apparently.

But in the way that Margaery Tyrell’s eyes had glinted when she had wrapped her sharp claws around his arm -- “Come with me, Jaime, I want you to meet someone. Myrcy and Tommen will be fine with Shireen, won't you dears?” -- hinted that Margaery had some other activities planned for Jaime this weekend besides sheltering his niblings from Robert's drunken antics.

The object of those possible activities apparently comes to a similar conclusion on her own. “Margaery,” Brienne sighs and fiddles with the tiny purse in her long fingers. “She can’t stop herself from meddling. She said Ren wanted me here because I’m CawCam famous now, but I think...” She steals a glance again at Jaime and is so adorably flustered that Jaime takes pity on her and changes the subject.

“So, your dog Dunk, is he named after the song or did you pick the song because your dog is named Dunk?”

Brienne takes a moment to think. “Neither,” she bites her lip again and half of her lipstick is gone now. “The dog is named after Ser Duncan Tall, the knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Any relation to you?” Jaime can’t stop smiling at her. The skin on her bare arms shines in the sunlight, little dots of freckles adorning it like cinnamon on top of a pastry roll.

“Yes to Ser Duncan Tarth, the best mariner,” she looks at him and there’s a hint of a smile on her lips. “Dunk the Lunk, well, that depends which side of Shipbreaker Bay the person you ask was born.”

They arrive at the front yard of the estate where the reception will be now, and stand watching how the guests are guided through the front door by the staff. The scene reminds Jaime of the way Ser Dunk the Dog hustles the sheep through a small gate. Brienne starts to follow the crowd so Jaime hurries after her.

“I’m glad she meddled, Margaery, I mean, ” he says when he catches her. Damn her long legs. “I’ve wanted to meet you for ages.” Brienne turns back to look at him with her blue eyes wide. “Wait up, Farm Girl,” he gives her his best smile and runs after her again.

There seems to be a lot of running after Brienne, Jaime learns during cocktails while the bridal party is away taking pictures. “So, who is taking care of your brood?” he asks when he has found her frowning at her glass, trying to hide behind a particularly tall plant, which is not nearly tall enough to cover her.

“My brother, Galladon,” she blinks at him, seemingly surprised that he has followed her there. “I had to pay dearly for it though,” she frowns and Jaime only needs to prod a little before she tells Jaime how she sold her soul to be a servant to the Tarth Marketing account for next month.

A little later, Tommen and Myrcy arrive, running directly to Jaime to ask his permission to go with Shireen to the game room. When Jaime turns back, he finds that Brienne has disappeared again. The kids run off to join the gaggle of Tyrell cousins in the game room where they are entertained by a team of nannies, and Jaime goes to search for Brienne again.

He spots her not far away, her tall head bent down talking with Mrs Olenna Tyrell, who is a terrifying old biddy, so Jaime stays clear from them until he spots Brienne hovering near the wall again. He grabs two drinks from a bar and steers towards her.

“Farm Girl,” he greets her.

“It’s Brienne, actually,” she says like the name hasn’t rung through Jaime’s head for months now.

“Brienne,” Jaime starts again. “Where do sheep go when they die?” She raises her eyebrow, which Jaime takes as a permission to continue. “To the baa baa que.” The outcome for his very lame joke is spectacular. Brienne opens and closes her mouth, rolls her eyes and goes adorably red before taking one of the glasses from Jaime.

“You blush,” Jaime purrs delightedly, and watches the red patches decorating her skin relocate to new places.

“Your jokes are terrible,” she hits back, but although she tries to hide it behind the glass, Jaime spots the smile at her lips again. “That’s not the scifi hand?” She nods towards Jaime’s fake hand.

“No, I’m still getting used to that. This one doesn’t do anything, except make other people feel better.” Jaime lifts up his prosthesis, the regular one. He hates the damn thing, but he hates the attention to his stump gets even more.

Brienne asks more about his fancy hand, and Jaime tells her that the circuit boards in the myoelectric hand have more gold in it than in Euron Greyjoy’s teeth fillings and manages to get a small laugh from her which Jaime files as a win. When the crowds start moving towards the dining area, Brienne does that thing again.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” she starts, like she is expecting not to hear from Jaime ever again.

“Ah, unfortunately I have some bad news, Farm Girl,” Jaime tells her with a delight. “Two different pieces of bad news, actually. I had a look at the seating chart and you won’t be getting rid of me yet.”

“We’re seated at the same table?” She blushes again, and Jaime can’t stop staring at it. “What’s the other news?”

“Apparently my cousin Cleos has also been invited.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Robert’s Coffee [actually exists](https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%E2%80%99s_Coffee#/media/Tiedosto:Cafe_markiz.JPG), and the coffee there is fine. Jaime is just a snob.  
> Brienne drinks a glass of milk with 3 raw eggs in Duskendale, our baby girl is out there building muscle 💪 like a pro


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it friends, we are near the end now. I apologise beforehand for distinct lack of cute animals in this chapter, unless you count Cleos as one.

**Chapter 6**

The feast is a fucking nightmare.

Not the food, which is up to expected Tyrell-Baratheon standards, but the company is abysmal. They are clearly seated at what Cersei would call “the undesirables table,” in the corner between the kitchen entrance and the door leading to the kids table in the next room.

Lovely Brienne, the only light in Jaime’s darkness, gets immediately monopolised by a Tully henchman called Robin Ryger who when hearing that Brienne used to play rugby, starts bragging about his own college sports accomplishments, which he imagines there to be many. Mainly these seem to be sailing and supporting Riverlands’ football team, the Archers.

The man starts to mansplaining sailing to Brienne, who grew up on an island and by her own words -- which Ryder ignores -- is not a stranger to dinghy racing, until Jaime (who only has Cleos on his other side to entertain) starts taunting Ryger.

“Do tell us Robin, how well the Archers did this year against the Boulders?” Brienne steals a glance at Jaime’s words. “I understand that they are now at the bottom of the pit? Did you enjoy watching them getting their arses kicked by the Boulders?”

“Cousin, your courtesies,” squeaks Cleos from somewhere behind Jaime.

Robin, who is not a good loser, takes a personal shot at Jaime. “You seem to have lost a hand since I’ve last seen you, Lannister. How did that happen?”

Before Jaime can react to that, Brienne fumbles her wine glass, and in the process manages to upturn a tall glass of water directly to Robin Ryger’s lap.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” she says, her pretty eyes calm. Jaime knows how to read a man's eyes. _She did it on purpose_ , he thinks delightedly while Robin storms off, drenched from head to toe.

“The nerve of the man,” Brienne scoffs while the waiter wipes the excess water from the table. “Tarth is an island. I learned to manage oars and sail before I could pass the ball or tackle.”

“I haven’t lost my hand,” Jaime decides to tell the rest of the table. “I know exactly where I left it. It’s at the bottom of the ravine with my classic convertible Valyrian” he continues while everyone watches him with horrified expressions. “With the damn goat I hit.” Brienne, bless her, diverts the conversation by talking about the goats they keep at Evenfall castle grounds, although she goes pink on her face again.

Rid of Rob Rygar, the atmosphere at the table relaxes considerably. Two girls across the table, Willa Manderly and her girlfriend -- some sort of artist -- seem to be pleasant enough. On the other side of Cleos, a shifty looking fellow called Dick Crabb tells Jaime’s cousin about the exploits of his ancestor, some ghastly footballer who had a collection of severed heads, while poor Cleos looks like he is about to die from a food coma. How that is possible is a mystery for Jaime, because he has been watching Dick Crabb stealing bits of food from Cleos’s plate all night.

Jaime turns to Brienne again, who seems to give her brother’s contacts to the artist -- “we need some shields to be painted for next tourney--”

He manages to get her attention when the speeches start by running commentary into her ear, and she only scolds him a little when Jaime makes fun of Stannis Baratheon’s speech. “Look, he managed to kill off poor Cleos,” Jaime points to his cousin, who is nodding off over his plate.

“Renly has always claimed that Stannis will kill him one day with one of his soul-draining lectures,” she hides her smile behind a glass of Highgarden red. After that, their conversation gets easier, trading stories with each other about all three Baratheon brothers. Unsurprisingly, Jaime wins by telling Robert’s antics at Stannis’s wedding, but Brienne comes a close second when she tells him about the time when Renly was aggressively eating peaches in front of Stannis as a power move.

When the food is finished, Renly and Loras start something that can be only described as the “War of Five Cakes.” The undesirables table manages to do as well in battle as everyone against incoming cake missiles, except Cleos, who gets a direct hit to the back of his head and doesn't even notice.

“I can’t say I’m surprised by their antics,” frowns Brienne when the room settles back to normality. “The cake cutting at Margy and Sansa’s wedding was much the same.”

Jaime picks up a small piece of cake debris from Brienne’s cheek with his thumb and puts it in his mouth. “Peaches and Cream. Can’t say I would have chosen it.”

She picks a piece of her own from the ceramic stag in the table centrepiece and hums. “Lemon zest made a much better projectile.”

“We’ll have cake trebuchet in ours,” he smiles at her and makes her blush again.

When the cake is eaten, Brienne gets claimed by Sansa and Margaery, who come to retrieve her like a puppy who needs a walk. “We’ll bring her back, Jaime,” Margaery coos, her eyes sharp before gently frog marching Brienne towards the ladies room. Willa and her painter girlfriend use the opportunity to escape from the madness, which Jaime doesn’t blame them for one bit.

Jaime is left to watch Dick Crabb swapping his empty cake plate with Cleos’s uneaten one while Jaime’s cousin snores. When Cleos’s cake is gone too, the man goes off to sell weed to the other guests and Jaime is left alone with sleeping Cleos until Tommen comes to the table.

The boy brings a stack of colouring sheets full of cats for Jaime to admire and seats himself in Brienne's empty chair. Jaime prepares himself for an upcoming NED-talk about the differences between the houses in the Warrior Cats universe, not for the first time.

“Clans, Uncle Jaime, not houses,” Tommen scolds Jaime and proceeds to explain his colour choices for the particular sheet. Brienne, mercifully, comes back and Tommen climbs to sit on Jaime’s knee instead. Brienne has reapplied her lipstick and Jaime wants to kiss away every bit of it.

“You’re that lady that Uncle Jaime has a crush on,” Tommen nods solemnly when Jaime introduces him to Brienne.

“Tom,” Jaime feels his own face going hot now and wonders if his blush is as visible as Brienne’s.

“Shouldn’t I have said that?” Tommen turns to look at Jaime. “But you said yourself that it’s normal to have crushes. Like Myrcy has for that singer she likes. And you said that we can’t help whom we love, like I can’t help that I love Warrior Cats even though Mummy says they’re stupid...”

Thankfully, Myrcella and Shireen then appear to fetch Tommen for a treasure hunt that the Tyrell cousins have arranged.

“Don’t worry about us, Uncle Jaime,” Myrcella says before leaving. “I’ll keep an eye on Tommen. We’re sharing a room with Shireen, and her mum said we all have to go to bed at the same time, so we won't stay up late.”

Myrcy promises to text Jaime when they are tucked in and Jaime’s niblings run off, undoubtedly fuelled by the copious amounts of ice cream and wedding cake they had for dessert. It’s not long after that Renly and Loras perform a cheesy dance number in lieu of the couples dance, where half of the wedding party is forced to participate as the backup dancers.

Thankfully, it finishes soon and the band starts playing. Jaime spots Brienne looking at the dancers across the room. “Would you dance with me? I know it will be awkward with my prosthesis--”

She doesn’t say yes, but she nods, stands up and smoothes her blue dress. Jaime takes her hand and walks them to the dance floor. She is still quiet during the first dance, but laughs when Jaime tells her about the time Cleos fell asleep in his own wedding reception. Jaime finishes it with “his snores sounded like ducks mating,” and gets rewarded with a truly beautiful laugh from Brienne.

Brienne’s laughter escapes out of her, not in a row delicate of pearls but more like billiard balls rolling down the marble staircase, loud and invasive and cheerful. It’s the very moment when Jaime realises that he likes real Brienne so much more than the girl from CawCam.

“You’re staring at me,” she tells him when she has schooled her face back to neutrality, although a small smile remains.

“I was thinking that your dress suits you,” he tells her, because it’s true. “It goes well with your eyes.” She blushes again, opens her mouth to say something but then she gets bumped to the shoulder by Robert Baratheon, well sauced already. “Watch it, Bob,” Jaime growls, thanks the Seven that the man is not his problem any more and steers his lovely partner to the other side of the dance floor.

Jaime’s prosthesis lays on Brienne’s back, but his real hand is in hers and Brienne lets him lead although Jaime gets a feeling she is more used to doing it herself. He twirls Brienne and that makes her laugh again until he pulls her back to dance hold. When the song ends, he murmurs “One more dance, Farm Girl,” into her ear. “If you’re willing?”

This time, she doesn’t escape. “Sure, JamLan86,” she smiles and starts to lead.

Later, Brienne leads him through the gardens to the side building where the accommodations are. The sky is full of stars but the Moonmaid hides behind her veil.

“There’s something I wanted to ask you, Brienne,” Jaime calls after her in the darkness.

“What?” she stops to wait for him.

“Are you going to pick me up now?” She laughs and then Jaime kisses away the last remains of her lipstick.

* * *

When Brienne wakes up, she is horrified to find out that she has wrapped herself around Jaime like some sort of particularly clingy octopus.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, embarrassment flooding her while she unwraps herself from the gorgeous man waking up beside her. “I didn’t mean to get possessive.”

Brienne is not entirely sure how she ended up agreeing to come to Jaime’s room, but Margy certainly had egged her on during the journey.

“The man is smitten with you,” Margaery had said to Brienne last night at the ladies room, as she shuffled through Brienne’s bag to find her lipstick. “Just have fun, how fucking often do you get laid on that damn island anyway? Now put this on again and go climb that man.”

The answer is not very often, so Brienne had put on her lipstick and climbed that man, climbed him like he was a tree. And apparently clinged to said tree all night.

Jaime, who looks 100% like a god, while Brienne feels grubby and slightly hung over, turns around and pulls Brienne back against him.

“I don’t mind,” he purrs and rubs his face against Brienne like a sleepy cat. Even his stubble feels like a cat’s tongue. “Feels nice to be held,” he says and Brienne feels her face burning when he reaches up to kiss her sloppily.

Then, for a while they don’t talk at all.

Afterwards, he fumbles over Brienne to get his phone from the table, “I need to check on my niblings,” he says, and Brienne is sure he is going to ask her to leave now but he is still kind of wrapped around her. “Ah, Selyse and Stan will take the kids to breakfast and then they’ll all go out to walk, bless them.”

Then he drops the phone, slides his hand up Brienne’s belly and takes her hand into his to kiss her fingers. “You’re not in a hurry to leave, are you?” he looks at her with his unbelievably green eyes and Brienne’s worries melt away like ice from the puddles on the first spring day.

“No,” she shakes her head. “I still have hours before I need to leave for my ferry.”

“To go back to your pretty island.” Jaimes eyes don’t leave her. How is he looking at her so intensely?

“Well, yes.”

“Speaking of which,” they play a gentle tug-of-war with their linked hands. “That trail to Pirate’s Cove looked pretty nice.” He lifts his eyebrows and bites his lip. Brienne’s mind races like sails on wind.

“You want to come to Tarth? To hike?”

“I want to come to Tarth, yes.” Jaime pulls their entwined hands again. “And I still haven’t relearned to drive a car, so I’ll need someone to drive me around the island to reach the trails.”

“Oh,” thoughts shuffle around Brienne’s head. Surely he can’t mean... “Well, Gally is a licensed wilderness guide and…”

“Brienne,” Jaime interrupts her, but when Brienne shuts up he doesn’t say anything for a while.

“What?” Her voice trembles oddly.

Jaime, the tall gorgeous man from CawCam, who spent all last night flirting with her, turns to his side to look at Brienne with a nervous expression. “I’m sure your brother is lovely, but I was hoping…” He finally lets go of her hand, and puts his palm to Brienne’s cheek to press a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “I was hoping _you_ would take me.”

The tip of Jaime’s nose tickles Brienne’s nose before he retreats again to babble. “Or if you don’t want to hike, we could go to that museum your brother constantly raves about. Or I could come and meet your sheep and chickens and your dog. I don’t care very much _what_ we do on your island, as long as I get to see you again.”

“Oh,” says Brienne, and then her hand snakes into his soft hair. “I think I’d like that.” Jaime laughs and then they tumble around the bed for a bit until a notification sound from Jaime’s phone interrupts them. Jaime reaches to take the phone again and Brienne uses the moment to steal a shirt from the floor and escapes to the loo.

“Brienne,” he calls after her when she is trying to wipe off the smudges of makeup under her eyes. “I didn’t realise CawCam has scheduled posting.”

“It doesn’t,” she says and comes back to the bedroom, where Jaime is sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his phone. He is only wearing his boxers and it’s terribly distracting.

“Then how did you post this?”

Brienne sits next to him and is not surprised to find out that Jaime immediately wraps himself around her so they can both watch his phone together. She only has known him for a handful of hours but she has already noticed how cuddly he is. It’s sweet, and it does feel nice to be held. Brienne sniffs his hair on the sly while he opens CawCam again.

The Caw that he shows her is from Brienne’s feed, but she hasn’t posted it. Brienne watches it with horrified expression while Jaime snickers.

“I hate my brother so much,” Brienne groans when the video ends. “Gal has my passwords. He’s so going to pay for this.”

“I changed my mind, Farm Girl,” Jaime drops the phone and pulls Brienne back to the bed. “I think I do want to meet your brother. Eventually.”

* * *

Surprisingly, Brienne doesn’t have any time to check out Coffee Kingdom before she goes back home. She barely catches the ferry as it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is [the video](https://www.tiktok.com/@williamyoungs/video/6907983679851597057?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1) that Gal posted to Brienne’s account.
> 
> I've had fun thinking about what would Renly and Loras's wedding be like if all the family members are still alive. There is a lot in the books how Margaery has lots of little cousins so I thought that the wedding would be very child-friendly with huge kids table and entertainment for them. And I like the idea that Stannis and Selyse are strict parents who have been parenting Robert's kids in family functions for ages so they look after Tommen and Myrcella because they know that Robert won't.
> 
> I squeezed in a lot of book people I liked, but I'm especially proud of myself for managing to figure out why Nimble Dick was invited (he is Renly's weed dealer). 
> 
> The next chapter is a short epilogue and it will be up in a few days.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue and some bonus scenes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO SENT ME LINKS TO CUTE ANIMALS!!! And thank you my betas, Webory and EmpressM again! Without you none of this could have materialised.
> 
> And I'm really overwhelmed with all the love I've received in comments and elsewhere. When I started writing this fic I thought it will be 2-3 chapters max, but look at it now, it's a giant ball of fluff like a katamari ball rolled up in a yarn shop.

**Epilogue**

_G: check her feed_

_M: watching it now_

_G: its so hetero_ 🤮

Margaery goes to Brienne’s feed and her latest Caw starts to autoplay. The video is from Brienne’s orchard, filmed under the apple trees with sheep dotting the hills behind it. Brienne is barefoot and her long pale legs are naked in sunlight. Margaery licks her lips.

“‘Ello friends,” Brienne waves to the camera. She looks adorably happy, with her dog laying on the grass near her feet and her blue eyes shining in sunlight. “Sometimes it takes me a long time to answer your questions, like this one--” A blue bubble appears floating on top of the video.

@jamlan86

_What else can you pick up Farm Girl?_

Brienne starts to talk again. “I’ve had this ask in my drafts for over a year, but I think it’s finally time to answer it.” She reaches to the side and pulls Jaime to the screen by his hand. Jaime is wearing Brienne’s rugby shorts with a tight t-shirt and the goofiest smile Margaery has ever seen on his stupidly handsome face.

_M: Gross_

_G: I know_ 🤮

_M: serves you right for sending him that link_

_G: well you got them those wedding invites_

“This lovely guy here is Jaime,” Brienne explains on screen while Jaime clings to Brienne like a limpet -- while looking at her with what can only be described as heart eyes. “Jaime, like many of my animals, is a rescue. He turned up at the ferry terminal one day, seasick and miserable, but still kept coming back, and one day, he just never left.”

“I like the scenery,” Jaime grins at Brienne.

“And he even keeps bringing rescues himself.” Now Brienne is looking at Jaime with heart eyes.

_M: ?_

_G: Jamie found a kitten in a trashcan last week at Storm’s End and brought it home_

_G: Lady Catara. He made her a Ravengram account._

On screen Jaime is saying something about boyfriends, and Margaery concentrates on the video again.

“But can I pick him up?” Brienne shouts to the camera, and within a moment has manhandled Jaime in a perfect fireman carry across her shoulders. “Of course I can,” she giggles and runs around the orchard carrying Jaime, while Dunk barks at the insanity.

“I thought you’re going to bridal carry me,” Jaime grumbles when Brienne finally sets him down.

“I know that you did, babe.”

Then Jaime attacks her. Brienne laughs and squeals when Jaime wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her up for a spin.

The video ends when Jaime shouts to the screen. “And then she’s in for a little cuddle!"

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BONUS SCENES
> 
> M: 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
> 
> G: IKR. It would be cute if it wasn’t my baby sis. And he’s *old*.
> 
> M: old like you 
> 
> G: I’m 4 months younger than Jamie.
> 
> M: ...
> 
> M: Gal. Do you know Jaime’s friend Addam?
> 
> G: That cute redhead from Jamie’s Caws???
> 
> M: Yeah
> 
> M: go check his FaceScroll feed
> 
> M: He’s shared like ten of ur hiking vids
> 
> G: …
> 
> ***
> 
> M: he took the bait hook line and sinker
> 
> B: excellent my evil plan is working
> 
> M: y tho? r u tryin to get revenge?
> 
> B: gods no 
> 
> B: have you seen how Addam leers at his Caws total hearteyes
> 
> B: it’s gross 
> 
> B: and I want Gal out of my inbox he needs a boyfriend
> 
> ***
> 
> G: 2430. dad has a photo somewhere I’ll scan it next time I’m there 
> 
> J: I got 2687 Addam witnessed. summer 1999. lots of snake played
> 
> A: n00bs I got 2883 before I bit my own tail Jaime witnessed summer 1999
> 
> J: Got 986 on my girlfriends dads old Skagos 3210 yesterday my girlfriend Brienne took a pic, pretty good score from a guy with one hand
> 
> A: can you shut up about your girlfriend WE KNOW you date Brienne, she’s literally Gal’s baby sis WE KNOW
> 
> J: can’t talk now got2 go kiss MY GIRLFRIEND 
> 
> A: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
> 
> ***
> 
> G: what ferry u booked? the early one or late one?
> 
> A: early one
> 
> G: c u then babe ⛺️🔥🥰
> 
> J: wtf
> 
> ***
> 
> Big sis: are you home doing your homework Tommen?
> 
> Kittenking: yes
> 
> Big sis: that’s a lie Tommen! I know you are at Mr Goodwin’s barn playing with his kittens, I can see it from your GPS location
> 
> Big sis: GO HOME AND DO YOUR HOMEWORK
> 
> Kittenking: no. u cant make me
> 
> Big sis: I’m going to call Brienne
> 
> Kittenking: FINE going home now
> 
> Big sis: stay away from Mr Goodwin’s goats bro, they are aggressive
> 
> Kittenking: mr Goodwin let me film them [look](https://twitter.com/panoparker/status/1354768184566575105?s=19)
> 
> Big sis: 😝 ok fine that is extremely cute. go home though and no warrior cats before your homework is done! 
> 
> ***
> 
> B: where r u?
> 
> J: at the dock making a sea shanty caw with Gal. shouldn’t take long 🏴☠️
> 
> B: ok pick you up at 5 then?
> 
> J: can’t wait 😘
> 
> THE END OF THE END
> 
> \------------------
> 
> so that's it my dears! Jaime and Brienne are living at the farm and Tommen and Myrcella will follow him there. Jaime and Gal are both absolute menace in CawCam, and manage to get a lot of publicity to Tarth, not all of it good. The kitten that Jaime found from a trash can is real, [here’s her Ravengram account.](https://www.instagram.com/ladycatara/)
> 
> So thank you all for reading, commenting, kudoing and reccing this fic!! Bye friends!!! _waves at the screen_

**Author's Note:**

> uhh I warned you it's crack!! But if you want to see [how to pick up a sheep you can view the original video here](https://tall-wolf-of-tarth.tumblr.com/post/641467213177618432).
> 
> My writing motor runs on feedback so please come back and drop a comment and kudo!!  
> and please share your ideas like what other animals should Brienne pick up!


End file.
